


Pitch Black Surface, Abyss of Light

by OnlyOneWoman



Series: A Simple Man [16]
Category: Black Sails
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angry Muldoon, Background stories, Bottom John Silver, Canon Era, Canon has more or less committed suicide by now and I regret nothing, Caretaking, Childhood Memories, Chiropractic, Crack Relationships, Crack Treated Seriously, F/F, F/M, Father-Daughter Relationship, Father-Son Relationship, Grief/Mourning, Healing, I never promised consistancy, Love, Lowbones, M/M, Mary Read discovering Nassau, Matelotage, Memories, Mild Smut, Not Canon Compliant, POV Alternating, Pain, Past Rape/Non-con, Past Relationship(s), Pirates are bad with feelings, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rape Aftermath, Seduction, Seductive Anne Bonny, Sexual Content, Silverdoon, Sorry Not Sorry, Spanking, Stress Relief, The Author Regrets Everything, The Author Regrets Nothing, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, Weakness, at all, because I keep ruining them, injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-28
Updated: 2019-11-28
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:59:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21593440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OnlyOneWoman/pseuds/OnlyOneWoman
Summary: Just what we all needed, a part fucking 16 of this mayhem embellished with the usual angst and pain, angry one-eyed Captains, stupid, one-legged poodles, angry gunners, worried first mates, a horny girl in men's clothes and a certain hat wearing demon lurking in the shadows.There's a huge risk (chance) that this series will include my first serious lesbian smut, but I'm not sure. How ever, here's to you, E_A_Phoenix, as another little treat for reasons you already know (you deserve good things!) and also to you TuridTorkilsdottir because finding TWO more lowbone shippers is like finding a second ship of Urca Gold :DAll the love and whoever reads this and has any thought about it what so ever, feel free to comment! <3<3<3
Relationships: Anne Bonny/Mary Read (implied), Billy Bones/Edward "Ned" Low, Edward "Ned" Low/Eliza Marble (past), Muldoon/John Silver
Series: A Simple Man [16]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1530410
Comments: 6
Kudos: 6





	Pitch Black Surface, Abyss of Light

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rising_Phoenix](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rising_Phoenix/gifts), [TuridTorkilsdottir](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TuridTorkilsdottir/gifts).



**Ned Low**  
Weak. That’s what he is, who he is and next to his lover’s frame, he feels so small. It’s also a very strange feeling, not having the usual pain in his neck, his spine and his hips. The pain has been his constant companion since he was but a young boy, he’s become used to it, to the way it would ache on cold days, make him feel stiff and withered like an old man.  
  
He’s never connected it to his temper or his malice. You don’t whine about pain, about bruises and ailments. He’s not admitted pain to anyone but Billy since he was a small child still young enough to cry without being told to stop acting like a girl. The only thing that has felt good in his body, has been the fighting, the drinking and the fucking, but more than that, the killing. It’s been a very long time since anyone drew their last breath because of him, he’s forbidden to drink himself silly and fucking is off the table. He should feel miserable.   
  
“You’re feeling any better, love?”  
“Aye…”  
  
Fingers tracing his spine are soft, so gentle. Ned closes his eyes as Billy’s touch travels up and down the knobbly bones. There are tears, again, but he’s almost getting used to them. He’s trying to see himself as a barrel with water, hit by a gun. The bullet biting through the wood and the content leaking out in an even stream. It should be empty by now, surely?  
  
Dr. Howell has done it once more, yesterday, and Ned still feels like he’s both been broken and had missing pieces put back in their places. The doc shook his head, widened his eyes and made exasperated snorts with every adjustment and sound of cracking bones but he knew what he did.  
  
“Sit up, love.”  
  
Ned has never ever liked following orders, not even those he’s agreed with. Now he has to. He can function without the blindfold well enough inside , even with a little more light through the window shutters, but the night is still his eyes best ally right now and by nightfall, his lover will open the door and the shutters, letting the darkness in.  
  
Ned sighs as the night air comes through.  
  
“Take me outside, please.”  
  
**John Silver**  
Accountable. He hates that word, has made an artform out of avoiding it and the threat of finding himself in a weakened position. Well, he is now. The legend John Silver with his death bringing iron boot, his scheming mind and slick tongue is laying across his matelot’s lap, breeches pulled down and being fucking accountable for not taking good care of his damn leg.  
  
Billy, thank God, has brought Low outside. It’s probably not nice to be grateful for the Captain getting a fever, but it does mean some privacy in the house and Muldoon, who’s healed remarkably fast the last few days, clearly decided to take full advantage of that – and not in the way John had in mind.  
  
He’d thought of denying it first, to refuse, because he knew Muldoon would never force him and the request was simply as ridiculous as it was humiliating but there was just something in the eyes of the gunner that stopped John’s protests and the hand that keeps coming down on his ass, isn’t playful in the least, but hard and punishing. Controlled, though. Determined and rough and it takes away the pain in the leg for another, burning one that John hasn’t felt since he was a young boy.  
  
The way Muldoon does it is quite different, though. It burns like fuck and whenever John squirms to try and ease it, the gunner holds him firmly in place. Each hard slap sends waves of pain over his skin. His ass and upp thighs must be bright red by now and when he gasps from it, Muldoon stops, cardening a gentle hand through John’s curls.  
  
“Told you I should spank you, mate. Bet you didn’t think I was serious, huh?”  
  
John only shakes his head and there’s a snicker from his matelot, not demeaning but surprisingly tender, as a contrast to the blows. He truly hadn’t expected this and while it really hurts, he’s not sure if he regrets lowering – or remaining.  
  
But the tension in his shoulders are softening and much to his embarressment, he’s getting hard and wet as well. The pain in the stump and the hip isn’t as bad now and he’s sniffling into the bend of his arm.  
  
He needs this, needs it badly and when Muldoon stops and starts rubbing ointment onto the abused skin, John doesn’t feel humiliated, but calm and he cries into the mattress, exhausted.  
  
“You did good, love… You want me?”  
  
John only nods because honestly, he thinks there’s a huge risk he’d actually combust if Muldoon doesn’t fuck him soon. He took his punishment, he did good, his grumpy matelot is pleased with him and John scoots his bad leg upwards to give access, ignoring the fact that he feels so good for _pleasing_ someone.  
  
Muldoon may still be injured, but no more than John, and he’s working John’s hole with hard, determined fingers, dripping with oil but also a tad bit on the rough side, and John whimpers from it into the bend of his arm. It’s fucking glorious, this determination from his lover and just as John is all but ready to beg for his cock, the fingers stop pumping and he feels them replaced with a slicked member, not prying its way in, but ramming with a punishing force.  
  
The gunner cradles him as he fucks him hard, movements determined and controlled just as before and John is sobbing, his useless wreckage of a body loosing weeks, if not months, of tension. He’s unlocking, muscles and joints going loose and he cries out like a wanton whore each time Muldoon hits that sweet spot deep inside him.  
  
He’s being accountable. Someone counts on him, counts him in and when sweet relief hits him, John can’t feel any pain at all. Muldoon has worked off both his own emotions and John’s as well and the only thing John can feel now, is pleasure.  
  
**Mary Read**  
Nights in Nassau are dangerous for a woman, but so are the days and Mary appears to be a man. Not a very tall or big one, but still. She’s not sure why she remains at the inn, she’s not even ordering more drinks and she most certainly doesn’t talk to anyone. The room is filled with men and whores, servant girls and the odd man who isn’t part of a crew, but has his business on shore. Cobblers, blacksmiths, bakers and tailors.  
  
Not everyone is a pirate here, but they’re all crooks to some extent, benefitting from the lack of laws and regulations. There are no mollies here, though, but Mary guesses there’s no need. Pirates can get what they want in that way onboard and she’s seen two men bringing a girl upstairs, or two men taking to a room by themselves. Almost everything is allowed here, there are no priests or judges, no sheriffs or guards to watch over them and for most part, people seem to do mostly the same things as in civilised places, only smiling more, talking louder and taking up more space than they’d be able to elsewhere.  
  
Mary looks over the customers and the girls. There are all sorts: tall and short, fat and thin, loud and silent, those with and without visible blemishes. Clothes in all shapes and forms – and the lack of them too.  
  
Talking about girls initially was a way to pass as a man. Taking up the language and gestures of the less fair sex has been necessary and not always something Mary has enjoyed. Men can be fucking tedious in their endless babble of tits and pussy – or ass – and once you’ve heard one bragging you’ve heard them all. Few of them probably know how to please a woman, Mary’s own husband certainly was no exception. He wasn’t careless or uninterested in her satisfaction, just not very good at it and, as all men, sensitive about being corrected.  
  
Mary brings her hand down her thigh without really knowing it. She’s no longer sore, has healed properly and enjoys her own touch again. She’s not doing it in the open, of course, but she knows why she’s been lingering now: it’s because _she’s_ back.  
  
Anne Bonny has entered along with Captain Rackham – Vane is not with them – and soon the man in the bright calico coat is surrounded with men and women who, most likely, wants to hear news and stories and the drinks are pouring as coins are rolling. The redhaired woman though, is standing in the shadows.  
  
It’s not fair, Mary thinks. It’s well known that Rackham isn’t famous for his courage or battle skills. He’s a good Captain, knows the sea well, but he wouldn’t be a Captain now if it wasn’t for Bonny and Captain Vane. His skills are that of the tongue and mind and it may not be fair, but here that doesn’t always matter when you’re a man and people expect to see courage and strenght in battle. Perhaps that’s why he both needs and respects Bonny, a killer with the body of what most men consider to be weak and harmless. Anyone who might initially think so about Anne Bonny is either half-blind or full on idiot, neither particularly unusual. And they most likely wont use their eyes again if they’re stupid enough to test her.  
  
The silence surrounding the redhaired woman is almost touchable and Mary keeps looking, she can’t make herself not to. Anne Bonny doesn’t smile, not even sneering, and she seems utterly unimpressed with her surroundings.  
  
A brawl is starting at the table closest to Mary and finally, the dangerous woman looks in her direction. The hat is hiding her eyes but the movement of her head makes it seem like she’s seeing Mary, stopping by her and Mary looks back over her cup, seemingly not staring back at all and it makes it hard to breathe.  
  
Mary is sitting still, too still, her body not yet loose and pliant from drinks – something she rarely dares to indulge in too much out of fear to be exposed. It’s strenuous to keep up a reputation that includes hiding parts of who you are and Mary can’t help but envy Anne Bonny, who doesn’t have to hide her sex. But, of course, that means plenty of other obstacles as well. Being a woman in a man’s world without being submissive, means you have to be twice as violent, twice as aloof and twice as shitty as them.  
  
Their first and last encounter ended with disappointment and that’s why Mary doesn’t know if she should be following when the redhaired woman slowly leaves her spot and walks outside. She’s not fast, not really appearing to be leaving and when the face shadowed by the hat is turning, so vaguely it’s almost impossible to catch, Mary quickly finishes her drink in a huge gulp and gets up.  
  
**Billy Bones**  
Ned still keeps his eyes closed at first, just focusing on pulling the fresh air deep down his lungs. His hair is falling down his shoulders, bleached from the sun despite the days inside and he’s lifting his face as if to look to the sky but he doesn’t. His lover wont look yet and Billy doesn’t rush. Instead, he helps him to sit down, to take the now all but natural position with the smaller man in his lap, leaned with the bony back onto his chest.  
  
It’s not that Ned refuses food. He’s accepting whatever his stomach may keep, but Billy suspects the prominent ribs are more due to the kind of restlessness that often seems harboured in violent men of smaller stature. They can’t save their strenght by assume a huge, widelegged pose. Always on the run from someone or something. Now, Ned can’t run but his body doesn’t seem to understand that. The heart this man still seems unconvinced of having, sounds like a little bird in a frail cage. Alive and moving fast, but with far too small a space to move.  
  
The night is fresh and calm and Billy realises this is one of the moments that makes the daytime struggles and nighttime terrors bearable. Feeling how his lover takes deeper breaths without tensing up makes Billy’s heart flutter. He loves to feel the slow, relaxed movements from the chest and back, how they sync with his own, in a sort of tandem wave. It takes time to get there and he’s so grateful that he’s allowed to go there with Ned at all.  
  
He’s learned not to comment tears, to not ask too many questions or show worry. It’s their secret, his and Ned’s, those tears that will appear seemingly out of nowhere at night when they’re safe from prying eyes. The first times, Billy did ask, did try and soothe them away but he’s come to the conclusion that the habit of saving tears for the merciful darkness isn’t easily broken just because there are no eyes around that will judge.  
  
It could be the pain, the weakness, the shame or the loss. It’s hard to tell and maybe not necessary. Perhaps this is how grief looks like when bottled up for too long and poured out all at once. A wife, a son and a daughter. Love that was all too brief.  
  
Or is it the hatred? They’ve only but touched the subject of Ned’s father, but what little that has been said, paints a more than ugly picture. Dislocated bones are parts of it, as are some deep scars on Ned’s back from a belt buckle. Billy tries to remember how he felt when his father had him taste the rod but while it stung and he would cry and father had his displeased eyes, it never happened that Billy went to bed without a kiss and a smile. When he turned to his pillow, it wasn’t to hide tears or pretend to be asleep to avoid making father angry. It was to feel a hand onto his hair, hearing a loving voice singing him to sleep.  
  
He strokes his lover’s hair, nuzzles his scalp and Ned still looks crestfallen, eyes shut and the face so pained before he can finally cry, before the grief that’s been frozen for so long is allowed to be reached by warmth and start dripping. Moonlight is more gentle than the burning sun and Ned opens his eyes, the seeing and the blind.  
  
Billy wants to cry too, because he’s never seen another living being look so utterly lost.  
  
**Muldoon**  
The quartermaster is an unusual lover and not merely for his still pretty looks and the thrill of sharing beds with a legend. Neither is he much for more exotic positions, maybe due to the leg, but something tells Muldoon that the quartermaster has never been comfortable enough to let go of control to an extent that actually may be adventurous.  
  
_Long_ John Silver may be a legend and John _Silver_ is a closed door but _John_ is a mess of poorly ignored emotions behind pale, blue eyes and a mouth that no longer manages to keep up a smile. Muldoon screamed at him when tumbling down the sand because it was the only language Long John Silver would be able to listen to. He hit him, spanked his ass because he refuses to cause actual damage but he did it not because he was angry about the leg, but because he knew John Silver needed it. There are so many gateways on the road to his John and Muldoon isn’t sure he’ll ever reach through them all.  
  
He’s cradled and soothed and just been holding the quartermaster for hours now and the odd and oh, so unusual sweetness of it all is almost too much for Muldoon as well, because he’s just a lowlife pirate, dammit, and to find out just how much his matelot has missed him has been… damn fucking overwhelming.  
  
It’s difficult to tell when _John_ is there, because well, first of all Muldoon isn’t even sure if that’s his real name. There have been many moments when they’ve been seemingly intimate together and suddenly, it’s as if John is not there, not in full. Muldoon may not have half of his matelot’s wits, but he found out rather quickly that the man doesn’t enjoy being fucked on all four or standing. John doesn’t want to show himself, yet he needs to be seen. And the best way to keep him a little happy, is to yell and bark at him, to let him know that Muldoon fucking cares by punish him for not caring about himself.  
  
Caring about John, means to ease the pain in his stump and the supporting hip. It means to cut off his attention to it for a while, to give him something else to focus on that doesn’t include worries about the future or fear of ghost from his past. If this helps, then so be it.  
  
Muldoon’s time away and his nothing less but miraculous return to the crew and his matelot, hasn’t left him weakened. Not much, anyway. He needs rest, yes, but Captain Vane and the Ranger crew took surprisingly good care of him on the way back to Nassau. They could’ve just killed him, or kept him in chains, starving in the carter cargo space, but he was allowed the sick bunk, rasions one of their slaughtered men was meant for and not that Muldoon considers himself a very religious man but if there’s a God, maybe He does want for him to be reunited with his stubborn, scheming and strangely shy lover.  
  
John hasn’t cared for his stump as he should but now, after gotten an outlet for the frustration and the words Muldoon doesn’t have, the gunner feels a lot better too. Darkness has fallen and the small house they share with Billy and Captain Low, is silent. A good silence, one that isn’t bursting with loneliness.  
  
**Ned Low**  
Being fucked by a man is bad enough, not to mention being violated by one. But Ned is almost certain that this is the thing that would make his late father spin in his grave. That his oldest and only living son is freely leaning into the arms of another man. A man who doesn’t take what he wants regardless of what the subject of his lust thinks and feels. Maybe that’s why Ned hasn’t even thought of women – or other men – since that first night.  
  
He both misses and doesn’t miss being fucked. It’s a subject that’s difficult to approach and if Billy wants to seek satisfaction elsewhere for now, Ned wouldn’t judge him. The man is always so careful with keeping a certain distance, to not let his cock come close to Ned’s ass and that’s both annoying and strangely sweet. Most of all, it’s new.  
  
Ned thinks about the first mate’s hands. Of their warmth, their kindness. Of the iron strenght that’s so clearly there, yet never the threat of violence. Not towards him. Trying to fight Billy is a damn near hopeless endeavour, not that a futile mission is something that scares Ned off diving straight into it, quite the opposite, but this thing he has with Billy, has come crashing down in a way he’s never felt before. And if Billy no longer wants to touch him, what little that’s left of Ned will wither.  
  
It didn’t matter before and now it does.  
  
He takes his lover’s hand and puts it onto his belly. It’s empty and unruly, craving something it can keep and Billy’s huge palm is warm and steady.  
  
“Ned…”  
“Jus’… touch me some…”  
  
No protests and the warmth of the hand feels good. Feels right and Ned tilts his head to the side that used to be too tense to move that far. If getting used to pain is a thing, then maybe the opposite is true as well.  
  
There’s something with the way his back is melting into Billy’s chest and syncs with the movements of his breaths. Ned can feel the bulge but against a safer spot, his lower back and not his ass and the feeling isn’t threatening or even uncomfortable.  
  
“Touch me… please…”  
“Are you…?”  
“Yes, I’m fucking sure!”  
  
The anger is a surprise to himself this time and he’s about to explain that he doesn’t demand Billy to touch him, but then the man starts kissing the side of his neck and Ned isn’t sure if there’s much to add in terms of words.  
  
“No fucking, Ned…”  
  
Or maybe there is. Ned lets out an exasperated sigh at the obvious response from his cautious lover.  
  
“Wasna gonnae let ye.”  
  
Let you. As if it’s a thing of bargain. If Billy was another kind of man, he’d get insulted or confused but the first mate understands a lot of things Ned doesn’t say out loud and finally, the hand lowers.  
  
He’s soft but the welcomed yet a little hesistant touch brings sweet memories to life and it’s not long before Ned’s breeches are filling out, fabrics straining over his cock under Billy’s huge palm. Teeth are nibbling his ear and Billy sighs.  
  
“You remember that time when you sent Read with the note?”  
“Aye.”  
  
How could he forget? Billy’s hand rubs his cock now and fuck, Ned has missed this and he can feel a smile onto his neck.  
  
“Didn’t even get a horse, I couldn’t wait, so I ran… Was so goddamn lost to you… Still am…”  
  
Ned moans when the hand starts with the buttons and he brings Billy’s left hand up to his chest, moving it to show the man how and where he wants to be touched. But it’s useless because the next moment the pain is back, swift and sharp, a lashing onto his skin and he remembers red pain piercing through his body, spitfilled words of hatred into his ear.  
  
_This is for my Rebecca, ye monster! Ye like this, huh? Feeling what she felt! Thought ye could use her like a bitch jus’ because she was a whore, yeah?_  
  
“I don’t… kill women…”  
“Lovey?”  
  
The hand disappears and Ned turns away, leaves the arms to loose his already empty stomach on the grass. He’s seeing the mad man’s eyes before him, a hatred that could match his own.  
  
“I dinnae… I’m no rapist…”  
“I know, love. I know.”  
  
He wants to explain, to tell the man bringing the red that he’s not _that_ kind of monster. That his violations are those of the blade and bullets, of fire and gunpowder, not of the cock. Killing or raping women and children are the only, fucking only violations his crew never got away with. It was known from the beginning that rage could be let loose and desires be fulfilled as long as the victims were grown men and there were no fucking rapes involved.  
  
_Ye’ve always been weak, lad. Never knew how to control yerself… Should’ve known ye’d end up a molly…_ _Remember when I brought ye to see two o’ em getting hanged?_  
  
Father.  
  
Yes, Ned remembers. He remembers how the two men had been dressed out in ribbons and dresses as a humiliation and that one of them shat himself just before he died. The hangman didn’t drop them high enough for the necks to break but had given them a slow death with kicking and agony and father had been thrilled, holding Ned’s face hard upwards and made sure he’d watch.  
  
He was six and the sound of the slow strangulation and the cheering crowd had haunted his nights for weeks until he’d been brought to so many hangings and floggings and hands getting cut off, he’d become used to it. The first time he managed to look without being forced to and didn’t show any feelings what so ever, father had given one of his rare smiles and patted his back and Ned knew he’d done well. He’d turned seven and knew nothing about the love between a man and woman, let alone the one between two men.  
  
Father would’ve prefered a rapist son to this. Perhaps it was a blessing that Ned’s own son never got to live long enough to inherit this evil that is the Low familiy’s bloodline. It’s a comfort to know that the female side doesn’t seem to be affected. That means that Elizabeth has a chance, far away from her monstrous father who either seeks comfort torturing men or in laying in another man’s arms.  
  
A man who doesn’t just turn him around and fucks him, or laughs at his tears and relishes in his pain. So much strenght not used, so much advantage not taken and Ned suddenly wants to know where that comes from, this… kindness that seems so natural to this dangerous man known for the way he can crush a man’s skull like an egg. The men they’ve both become don’t paint a whole picture and Ned rests his sore eye at the soft skin on his lover’s chest, not willing the memory away, but back.  
  
“She has her mother’s eyes an’ hair… My smile… She’ll turn eight this fall…”  
  
His lover listens quietly, gets to hear an echo of the father Ned once was and the memory of a daughter who deserved better. Slowly, word by word, the life he’s buried in the abyss of grief, is rising, rippling the surface and for the first time, the light touching his memories, isn’t tearing him apart.


End file.
